Ivermectin falls flat against mild-to-moderate COVID-19

Treatment with ivermectin for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 does not appear to reduce recovery time as compared with placebo, according to data from the ongoing ACTIV-6* study.

The current analysis included 1,432 COVID-19 participants who were older than 30 years of age (median age 48 years, 59.6 percent female) and were experiencing at least two symptoms of acute infection for not more than 7 days. These patients were randomly assigned to receive ivermectin with a maximum targeted dose of 600 μg/kg (n=708) or placebo (n=724). Treatment was administered daily for 6 days.

The primary outcome of time to sustained recovery was defined as at least 3 consecutive days without symptoms. Secondary outcomes included a composite of hospitalization, death, or urgent/emergent care utilization by day 28.

Most of the patients (83.1 percent) reported having received at least 2 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine doses. The median time to sustained recovery did not differ between the two treatment groups: 11 days with ivermectin vs 12 days with placebo (hazard ratio [HR], 1.02, 95 percent credible interval, 0.92–1.12; p=0.65).

Hospitalizations, deaths, or urgent or emergency care visits occurred in 39 ivermectin-treated patients and in 42 placebo-treated patients (5.5 percent vs 5.8 percent; hazard ratio, 0.97, 95 percent credible interval, 0.60–1.45; p=0.55).

One patient died and six were hospitalized in the ivermectin group (1.0 percent), whereas two patients were hospitalized and none died in the placebo group (0.3 percent). Adverse events were infrequent in both groups.

*Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines 6